ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1950, conducted is an efficiency improvement survey at Toyo Kogyo’s Mazda plant in Hiroshima, which at the time manufactured three-wheeled vehicles. SMED was born as a result of examining closely the theoretical and practical aspects of setup improvement. Both analysis and implementation are thus fundamental to the SMED system and must be part of any improvement program. In traditional setup operations, internal and external setup are confused; what could be done externally is done as internal setup, and machines therefore remain idle for extended periods. In planning how to implement SMED, one must study actual shop floor conditions in great detail. Setup procedures are usually thought of as infinitely varied, depending on the type of operation and the type of equipment being used. When these procedures are analyzed from a different viewpoint, it can be seen that all setup operations comprise a sequence of steps.
